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by aqd



Series: Laviyuu Week 2018 [5]
Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space, Angst, Exploration, Falling In Love, Hurt/Comfort, LaviYuu, Laviyuu Week 2018, Loneliness, M/M, One Shot, Science Fiction, Time - Freeform, space, space travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-14 23:00:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14146491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aqd/pseuds/aqd
Summary: “What’s your name? I’m Lavi,” he says with a smile and leans against the bar. The Explorer examines him for another moment, before he puts his glass down.“Kanda,” he answers and his smooth voice goes through Lavi.





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**Author's Note:**

> Fifth day of the Laviyuu Week: Wind | Autumn, Strength, Wild, Unstable, Fresh
> 
> trigger warnings: space, black holes, sexual content

The first time Lavi sees the Explorer is a few days after his tenth birthday. It’s a normal day on their little moon, somewhere in the Milky Way. Like every day he helps his grandfather after school in their little bar. The guests are always the same. Handymen and shopkeepers, sometimes members of the Planetary Guard.  
  
_Everything_ is always the same. Lavi sweeps all the grey dust brought in by their guests back out the door. He always does. They don’t have a lot of rain on their small moon and there’s also not much green outside. It’s grey and reddish, aside from some lichens in different shades of green, white and brown. The two suns burn down relentlessly and their moon’s planet, a gas giant, slowly emerges behind the horizon. Lavi can already see the rings.  
  
It’s a hard life. His grandfather is old, but still has to work every day in the bar to earn some money and pay for Lavi’s attendance at school. They don’t earn enough to hire somebody to help and so Lavi spent a big part of his childhood sweeping, cleaning and sometimes entertaining the drunkards. They all like him. He’s a little rascal, always playing pranks on the old man or stealing some of the sweet cherries set aside for cocktails.  
  
They have rarely guests from another planetary system, sometimes soldiers traveling through or junior scientists. Lavi loves to listen to them, talking about space, stars and planets. He often sneaks out at night to watch the stars. It’s his dream to leave the small moon.  
  
So it’s not a surprise that he’s in awe the first time he sees the Explorer. It’s a young man, taciturn and stern, wearing a dark blue uniform. Lavi hides behind the bar and watches him. He drinks a beer in silence and then another.  
  
“What are you doing?” The old man examines him with a raised brow and Lavi points excitedly at the Explorer, who notices, of course, and stares sullenly at him. Lavi hides promptly again behind the bar and sneaks a cautious peek. The old man snorts and pets his head. “Excuse my grandson. He’s fascinated by space.”  
  
“Who isn’t,” the Explorer answers without a smile and puts his glass down. He pays and tips generously and then he’s gone. Probably back into the eternal darkness of space.

 

 

The next time Lavi sees the Explorer is shortly before his fourteenth birthday. School is tough at the moment. He spends his days with learning and preparing for his exams. And at night he still lies on the burned patch of grass behind their house and watches the stars.  
  
The Explorer looks exactly the same like the last time. Lavi’s memory has always been great, a huge help for school. He has the same long ponytail, the same smooth skin, the same stern eyes. Even the uniform is the same. But there’s one difference, not in his appearance, but in the nervous flutter of Lavi’s stomach.  
  
The Explorer is beautiful.  
  
Lavi brings him a beer and after some hesitation he emboldens to sit down next to the Explorer, who shoots him a bored look.  
  
“Hello,” Lavi stammers and of course he blushes.  
  
“What do you want?” The Explorer asks and takes a sip of his beer. He seems to notice how generously Lavi filled the glass and examines him with raised brows.  
  
“You… You’re an Explorer, right?” he asks and winces, because it’s obvious. It’s even embroidered into his uniform. The Explorer nods and stays silent, giving Lavi the courage to speak on. “H-how is space?” he asks and the man examines him for a long moment. He has to be in his twenties, probably in the middle.  
  
“What do you mean?” he asks and takes another swig of his beer.  
  
Lavi hesitates for a moment and then he looks up to him. “You travel through wormholes, right?”  
  
The Explorer looks at him and Lavi’s eyes jump over his handsome face. “Why are you asking?”  
  
“Because,” Lavi falls silent and smiles awkwardly at him. “Because I want to do the same. As an adult,” he adds and the Explorer’s face stays very even.  
  
“I see,” he answers and empties his glass. “Good luck.” He places some money and another generous tip on the bar, before he gets up and leaves. Lavi looks after him and takes the money with a sigh.

 

 

Four years later Lavi is still in the bar, cleaning tables and pulling beer. He dropped out of school a year ago. His grades have always been flawless, thanks to his eidetic memory and determination. The reason has been a conversation with his grandfather a few months before. They talked about money and the requirements to become an Explorer.  
  
He still has to think quite often about the Explorer. The genetic elite. Born in vitro and into perfection. All good grades in the world aren’t going to help him. There’s no way for him to reach this goal.  
  
In the beginning he has been disappointed, but now there isn’t much left, aside from resignation. Lavi’s future has always been right in front of him. It’s the bar, tiny and run-down like since his early childhood. Lavi spends his days with carrying beer and liquor home, cleaning and doing the dishes and in the evening he watches the same tired faces drinking themselves slowly to death. His grandfather has a day off, because of his aching joints. It’s not the first time that Lavi takes care of the bar all alone and so it’s just another day like all the others.  
  
That changes an hour before closing time. The bar is barely visited, just a few soldiers and an old miner, until the door opens and the wind carries grey dust into the small bar. Together with the face Lavi still thinks about from time to time. Perfect symmetrical features, cheekbones to die for and dark, dark eyes.  
  
Lavi’s shyness is long lost and made place for boldness. “Hello,” he greets the Explorer, who sits down and looks at him. He’s even handsomer than Lavi remembers, though he never forgets anything. “What would you like?”  
  
“A beer,” the Explorer answers and his smooth voice goes right through Lavi, who just sees a possibility to make this night a little less boring.  
  
He might be young but that doesn’t mean he’s inexperienced. The Explorer doesn’t talk much and so Lavi does, about everything space aside, because the bitterness is still there, even though he doesn’t want it to be. Lavi knows that he has that certain something. It’s his smile, the wild hair, the green eyes, his audacity. And the fact that he looks a few years older than he is.  
  
He’s good at flirting and so he does, subtle in the beginning and later bolder. The Explorer is a toughie, he doesn’t laugh or smile or even replies more than a few words, but Lavi notices that his eyes start to wander after a few more beers. It’s long after closing time and that means now or never and so Lavi jumps casually over the bar and stops right next to him, way too close.  
  
“You wanna come upstairs?” he asks and excitement pools in his stomach, because the Explorer doesn’t shoot him down immediately. Instead he raises a hand, face so beautiful and cagey, and as soon as he touches Lavi’s wrist a shiver darts over his back. The Explorer’s hands are soft but strong and Lavi can’t keep his cheeks from getting hot. “Yes?”  
  
The Explorer stays silent and for a very nice moment Lavi thinks he’s going to get up and follow him upstairs, but instead he suddenly turns his arm and Lavi understands what he’s doing. It’s too late and the Explorer is too fast.  
  
The wristband is slim and after years of wearing it Lavi barely notices it anymore. It would be his most valuable property if it belonged to him, but it doesn’t. It belongs to the agency of their small moon. They all have to wear it, since it’s the only way to identify oneself.  
  
The Explorer certainly knows what he’s doing. He presses it just the right way and the hologram appears, grainy and barely readable. Lavi is going to get a new wristband on his birthday.  
  
“Seventeen,” the Explorer growls and lets go of him.  
  
“I’m eighteen in two weeks!” Lavi replies and disappointment sloshes over him. “Nobody will know.”  
  
“I will know,” the Explorer replies and gets up. “Fuck off, you fucking child.” He clunks some money on the bar – no tip – and turns around.  
  
“Oh come on,” Lavi replies, all of a sudden angry, because he worked overtime and doesn’t even get a fucking tip. The Explorer flips him off and leaves. “Fuck you!” Lavi shouts after him, but he’s gone.

 

 

It’s interesting how much two years can do. Lavi is still on the same tiny moon and in the same tiny bar, but it’s not anymore a lost day, when he doesn’t make at least one gal or guy blush. Instead he works at night and at day he’s reading, because he doesn’t want to spend his whole life in the bar. He can’t be an Explorer, but maybe a technician. And so he studies and works hard, thoughts still occasionally wandering to the stern young man with the pretty face.  
  
When he shows up on a calm evening Lavi’s first reaction is to cringe, because of his behaviour the last time. The Explorer darts him an annoyed look and sits down. Lavi is surprised he even came back.  
  
He smiles at him and serves him a beer, before he can even order. “I’m sorry for the last time,” he says and the Explorer raises his brows. “It’s on the house.” He stares at him for a long moment, obviously contemplating if he should get up and leave, but in the end he doesn’t.  
  
“Thanks, but I stopped drinking. Do you have water?”  
  
“Of course.” Lavi pours the beer away and reaches for a glass, when he notices the look of the Explorer. “Believe me, when you work your whole life in a bar the last thing you want to do is to drink.” He even cuts a lemon and gets some ice cubes, before he serves the fizzy drink.  
  
“Thank you,” the Explorer answers and takes a sip. He still looks exactly the same, but more tired. He notices Lavi’s gaze and raises his brows. “What?”  
  
“What’s your name? I’m Lavi,” he says with a smile and leans against the bar. The Explorer examines him for another moment, before he puts his glass down.  
  
“Kanda,” he answers and his voice is as smooth as two years ago. Lavi tilts his head and more or less forces a conversation onto Kanda, who’s as fascinating as Lavi remembers.  
  
They talk for a while, mostly about space and he even gets Kanda to describe traveling through wormholes.  
  
“It’s like jumping into an abyss. You never know what awaits you on the other side,” he explains and empties his glass. Lavi immediately serves him another water, this time with even more lemons.  
  
“How… how does a wormhole look like?” he asks and starts to clean the sticky surface of the bar.  
  
“Like a black hole. Big round nothingness,” Kanda replies. “The only difference is that you’ll hopefully come out again and won’t be seen for the last time.”  
  
“Hopefully?” Lavi echoes and Kanda nods. “They collapse sometimes, don’t they?”  
  
“Rarely,” he answers stiffly and turns the glass in his hand. “But sometimes they do.”  
  
“And then you’re dead?” Lavi asks and is suddenly very okay with not being able to become an Explorer.  
  
Kanda stares at him, dark eyes unreadable, and takes another sip. “That’s the only question you have?” he asks and then he empties the glass and gets up. He throws some money on the bar – including a generous tip – and is already turning around when Lavi stops him.  
  
“Kanda, how old are you?” he asks and Kanda examines him for a long moment.  
  
“What do you mean? How long ago I was born or how long I have lived?” He examines Lavi carefully, who raises his brows.  
  
“There’s a difference?” he asks and Kanda nods.  
  
“Yes, there is.” And then he’s gone.

 

 

“How long have you lived?” Lavi asks two years later. Kanda sits on the same bar stool like the last time and drinks his water, this time with limes and no lemons. He’s as beautiful as the last time and Lavi’s stomach won’t stop fluttering.  
  
“About twenty-eight years,” he answers after a long moment. The bar is completely empty, they’re all alone. “And that’s the reason you’re way too young for me,” he adds and Lavi starts to grin.  
  
“Am I?” he asks and holds his wrist out for Kanda, who stares at him for another moment, before his cool fingers touch Lavi’s heated skin and activate the wristband.  
  
_Lavi Bookman, 21.26 years old, blood type 0-_ …  
  
It has been a long time without any physical contact and Kanda’s sitting right in front of him, all beautiful and mysterious.  
  
“Am I?” he repeats and Kanda contemplates for a long moment. His dark eyes jump over Lavi’s eyes, his freckled cheeks, his wild hair. “I want you,” he adds. “Very much.”  
  
Kanda’s eyes drop and stay on his lips, before going all the way back up to his eyes. “Yes?” he asks and the tone of his voice is the answer. Lavi smiles at him and jumps light-footedly over the bar.  
  
“Wanna come upstairs with me?” he asks and Kanda gets up. It’s all nice and easy, walking through the dimly lit bar with a strong hand on his waist, feeling the warmth of Kanda’s skin through the worn-out shirt he’s wearing. All nice and easy, until the door flies open and the old man’s angry face appears.  
  
“Lavi,” he scolds and Kanda’s hand disappears in the matter of a second. “How often do I have to tell you to close on time? I barely get the drunkards out every night, because they keep arguing that you often keep serving even after closing hour.”  
  
“Sorry, Gramps,” Lavi answers with a disappointed sigh and tries to meet Kanda’s eyes, but he’s already turning around. He puts money on the bar and leaves, not without a last heated look at Lavi, who damns the old man’s flawless timing.

 

Kanda’s back only a few days later and this time Lavi closes the bar even before closing time and they barely make it upstairs, a pair of hands on his waist and hot lips on his neck.  
  
It’s quick and hot on Lavi’s bed, which squeaks like in bad porn. Kanda is behind him and in him, holding up his hips, and Lavi is biting the pillow to stay silent, because the walls are thin and the whole neighbourhood is probably already listening to the creaking of the wooden bed.  
  
Kanda’s not only beautiful, but also a good kisser and certainly knows what he’s doing. It’s quick and hot and Lavi comes embarrassingly fast, barely able to keep himself from shouting and ramming his nails hard enough into the linen to leave behind crescent imprints. Kanda doesn’t need much longer. His thrusts are inpatient and go pleasantly through Lavi’s whole body, until his eyes finally flutter shut only a minute later, and then his rhythm falls apart. He curls his fingers hard enough into Lavi’s hips to leave behind bruises und buries himself into him even deeper than before and sending a hot tingly jolt up Lavi’s spine. Climax is surprisingly silent and a few seconds later he pulls out and flops down next to him.  
  
Lavi turns over on his side and wraps an arm around him, all breathy and softly laughing. Kanda looks at him, eyes tired, bottom lip reddened and hair sticking to his forehead, and raises his brows. “The fuck are you laughing about?” he asks breathlessly. His frown is impressive, but cheapened by his very flushed cheeks.  
  
“Do you need a place to stay tonight?” Lavi asks still laughing and after a moment Kanda nods.  
  
They have sex two more times in this night, slower and more deliberate. In between they share blanket and bed and Kanda probably wants to sleep a little, but Lavi doesn’t let him. Instead he keeps scattering kisses over his neck and chest and whispers into his ear.  
  
“Why don’t you look older since the day I saw you for the first time?” he asks and Kanda opens his eyes. They just took a quick shower together and a strand of wet hair sticks to his cheek.  
  
“Cryostasis and time dilation,” he answers likewise silent. “And I do look older, but only a few years.”  
  
“Is that the reason you only show up every few years?” Lavi asks and Kanda nods. Lavi cups his cheek and traces his lips with the tips of his fingers. “How long is it ago for you that seventeen years old me tried to hit on you so awkwardly?”  
  
Kanda’s eyes wander over his face and it takes him a few moments before he answers.  
  
“Eleven months.”

 

 

Kanda has promised to come back, between kisses and hungry touches. Lavi waits for him, but weeks and then months fly by, and one day another young man steps through the door and Lavi loses his heart in the matter of seconds.  
  
In the end it’s four years until he sees Kanda again, who looks as young as before, the lovebite on his neck barely faded. It doesn’t hurt him that Lavi’s in a relationship or at least he doesn’t show it.  
  
Instead he orders a water, this time without lemon or lime, because the harvest was scarce this year, and they talk the whole evening. Or Lavi talks and Kanda listens, to everything that happened in the last four years on the boring little moon. This goes on until it’s closing time and Kanda’s warm fingers touch Lavi’s wrist.  
  
“You wanna see something?” he asks and Lavi’s cheeks heat up. He knows he should say _no_ and go home, but he can’t. It’s the way Kanda looks at him, unreadable and at the same time so _warm_.  
  
They walk together through the night, the first of the suns slowly crawling over the horizon, and Lavi finally stops, when Kanda presses his fingers. “Kanda,” he says into the silence of the early morning.  
  
“Yes?” Kanda examines him questioningly.  
  
“I… I…,” Lavi starts, but Kanda doesn’t let him finish.  
  
“You never were in space, were you?” he asks and takes his hand once more to lead him through the scarce morning light. Lavi forgets his tentativeness and also to breathe for several moments.  
  
“What? Don’t tell me…” he whispers and clearly hears Kanda snorting.  
  
“Wanna change that?” he asks and now Lavi spots the ship behind him. The ship of an Explorer.  
  
Lavi forgets the world and nods.

 

His worries are unfounded. Kanda doesn’t try anything, aside from taking his hand another time, laying it on the center stick and carefully guiding him. He even allows Lavi to sit in the pilot’s seat.  
  
They spend the whole day somewhere in the mesosphere, the small deserted moon under them and the sky full of stars. It’s technically not space, but Lavi never cared less in his life. He never was as close as now to space, which never left his dreams, day and night. He asks a thousand questions, about the ship, about space travel, about wormholes, and Kanda answers all of them patiently.  
  
The whole day long it’s only the two of them in the small ship, the reflection of sunlight in Kanda’s dark eyes, the sound of his voice. It’s only the two of them, until Lavi darts a look at the old phone he spent a big part of his salary on some years ago and falters. Dozens of missed calls and messages.  
  
Lavi forgot the world and everyone in it, aside from the not aging young man sitting in the pilot’s seat and skilfully landing the ship. Lavi should go home, he really should. His boyfriend has to be worried and is probably angry. But he still lingers at the door, looking at Kanda, whose face is perfectly even.  
  
“Kanda?” he says softly and he stops in front of Lavi, questioningly raising his brows. “Thank you,” he adds and Kanda wants to stop him with a wave of his hand, but Lavi still pulls him into a heartfelt embrace. It’s innocent and their hands stay on backs and shoulders, but Lavi still feels guilty later that evening, when he walks home.

 

 

It’s only two years and it’s the same small bar on the same small moon, but Lavi’s whole life has changed.  
  
Kanda comes into the small bar together with an autumn breeze, enshrouded by dancing dark strands of hair and grey dust. He stops dead at the door. It’s not only the obvious signs of the last two years, scars and the eyepatch, it’s the restlessness in Lavi’s eye, in his hands, in his lips. It’s all the weight he lost. It’s the sadness sloshing through the green of his iris.  
  
“Hello Kanda,” he greets him softly and gives him a small smile. They’re all alone in the bar, as alone as never before, because there’s no longer an old man with flawless timing. Kanda slowly steps closer and lays a warm hand on Lavi’s scarred cheek.  
  
“What happened?” he asks softly and Lavi crumbles.

 

Later they lie on Lavi’s old bed, sharing blanket and pillow, both of them still dressed. It’s innocent and Lavi feels so secure like he didn’t since a spring day six months ago. The little moon never left its path, but Lavi’s life did. An accident, trivial for the planetary system dozens of light years away, for Kanda floating through the starless black of a wormhole.  
  
The old man is dead, Lavi lost an eye and nearly his life, together with light-heartedness. His relationship fell apart already months earlier, buried under glinting dark eyes and an unreadable beautiful face.  
  
Lavi looks into the same beautiful face, as pristine as two years ago. But the circles under Kanda’s eyes got darker. “How are you?” he asks into the silence of the dusty bedroom and Kanda looks at him for another moment, before he moves closer.  
  
“Tired,” he answers and lays a hand on Lavi’s skinny waist. “Turn around.”  
  
Lavi does and Kanda holds him the whole night.

 

Kanda is on leave for four days, which is not a lot, but the longest time they ever had with each other. They should probably do something, maybe grab something to eat and walk over grey dust until they leave behind all houses and watch the two suns slowly hiding behind the rings of the little moon’s planet, casting blurry shadows onto the landscape. But they don’t. They stay at home most of the time and Kanda accompanies Lavi to the store and helps him carrying liquor back to the little bar. At night they stand together behind the counter and Kanda serves the same tired old faces Lavi now has seen for years. He also keeps taking the glasses with cheap liquor out of Lavi’s hand, until he finally gives up.  
  
“When you work your whole life in a bar, the last thing you want to do is to drink. Remember?” he asks and Lavi smiles tiredly. They don’t have a lot of guests and barely cover the expenses like so often in the last year. Another worry on Lavi’s shoulders and he would probably spend his evening like usually with pondering, but Kanda has other in mind. It’s the last night before he has to leave and finally they walk over dust until they leave the flickering light of the old street lamps behind.  
  
The gas giant is still illuminated by one of the suns, pouring pale blue light down on them. Kanda looks washed out, all colour lost in the sea of stars. They’re now nearly the same age, but Kanda is immaculate, other than Lavi. Beauty and flawless skin preserved by cryostasis and air-filtering. But Lavi knows it’s an erroneous belief. The walls of the ship might look unscalable, but radiation finds a way, rioting through cells and DNA.  
  
Kanda looks at him, starlight in his eyes and lips, and for the first time in five years they kiss. It’s probably only a few months for Kanda, maybe even less, but for Lavi it has been five long, long years. They embrace each other, veiled in the pale blue light of the only planet Lavi has ever seen with his own eye, while it has to be only a number for Kanda. It’s just lips on lips and hands on shoulders, neck and cheeks, and when Lavi draws back Kanda moves with him for another moment, before he slowly opens his eyes.  
  
“Kanda?” Lavi asks and two warm hands wander down his back and close around his waist. “Kanda, do you have to leave?”  
  
The easiness falls out of Kanda’s face immediately, the line of his mouth suddenly hard. Lavi’s hands jump up to his cheeks, cradling his face and trying to undo the damage, but the moment is lost. “I didn’t mean to-”  
  
“Yes,” Kanda interrupts him and pulls him close. “Yes, I have to.” It’s the way he pronounces the little word _have_ , the heaviness in his voice, and Lavi knows it’s true. It’s not just an excuse.  
  
“Yes?” he still asks and Kanda nods, before he closes his eyes and kisses him another time, long and slow, because it’s going to be one of the scarce kisses for Lavi in the next few years and a little source of warmth for Kanda in the cold wide void.  
  
An hour later the first one of the suns rises and Kanda leaves.

 

 

It’s three years and there are days Lavi doesn’t even think about Kanda, who always has been like smoke, swirling around him and flowing through his fingers before disappearing into the darkness. On other days he does think about him, mainly about memories of lips on his own, dark eyes and warm hands on his skin.  
  
The day Kanda stumbles back into his life is one of the days he didn’t cross Lavi’s mind. The scars healed, the pain is gone and grief is still there, but the weight is much lighter on his shoulders. In the early hours of the evening Lavi served a young couple and his mind didn’t wander to Kanda, but to his ex-boyfriend. The relationship went on for nearly a year, before they separated amicably. He’s not as unhappy as three years ago, but a little lonely and Kanda appears just in time like he knows.  
  
It’s a windy night and when Lavi hears the doorbell he sighs, because he swept the floor only an hour ago. He turns his head and falters.  
  
Kanda didn’t change the slightest. He’s timeless and beautiful and Lavi can’t even greet him, before Kanda light-footedly jumps over the counter.  
  
“Are you single?” he asks and Lavi can only nod, before Kanda kisses him. It’s passionate and goes right into Lavi’s rapidly flushing cheeks.  
  
“Oh,” he breathes against Kanda’s lips. He snorts, draws back and examines Lavi, who now spots a few differences. The circles under his eyes are less dark and there’s a faded bruise on his temple. “What happened?” he asks and smooths his thumb over Kanda’s cheekbone. It’s been three years, but now it feels like mere three months. They snap back into place and Lavi’s hearts jumps in his chest, when Kanda lays his hands on his waist.  
  
“A little accident,” he answers and then he’s back at kissing Lavi, who’s in no position to close the bar earlier today and still does.  
  
Kanda stays the whole night. They roll around on the bed, pin each other to the mattress and Lavi loses count how often they have sex. It’s hot and exciting and Lavi feels _wanted_ , just what he missed. He enjoys the attention, the hands in his hair and on his skin, the lips on his neck and slowly traveling down his front. He enjoys it thoroughly, until he spots the way Kanda looks at him. He’s on top of Lavi, riding him, eyes fluttering shut from time to time, but when he looks down on Lavi, it goes painfully through his heart. Eyes and mouth soft, just like in this night three years ago, bathed in blueish light reflected by the gas giant.  
  
“Kanda?” he asks breathlessly and Kanda hums, hands delving over Lavi’s chest. “How much time passed for you?”  
  
Kanda pauses for a moment and thinks, before he leans down to Lavi and kisses him, hips rocking up and down and thighs trembling. “Six weeks,” he sighs into the kiss, words nearly lost amidst warm breath and soft moans.  
  
Six weeks versus three years. Lavi’s heart sinks with heavy assumption, which is confirmed, when he breathes Kanda’s name later, hands on his hips, and is met with a heated kiss, and another, another, another. It’s the softness of Kanda’s hands, the tenderness of his body against Lavi’s, the way he whispers his name.  
  
Kanda is in love with him. Still newly enamoured, because it can’t even be a year for Kanda since they kissed for the first time. And only weeks since a night under pale blue light of the gas giant. Kanda is in love with him.  
  
And Lavi is not.  
  
Kanda is a passerby, nonetheless near and dear to Lavi, but still not more than a few kisses and nights shared every few years. Lavi’s life moves on, but Kanda’s doesn’t. Forever frozen in time.  
  
“What’s wrong?” Kanda asks later when they lie next to each other and presses Lavi’s cold hand. It’s everything.  
  
“We should talk,” Lavi answers and they do.

 

 

When Lavi was a little child, he loved to drive the old man nuts. He jumped around like one of those little dark birds, which peck in the grey dust in search of lichen, changing his mind faster than the breeze changing directions.  
  
_Lavi_ , the old man used to say, _the world is not kind to those, who are as volatile as you. Why do you always want to have what you can’t get?_  
  
Lavi has never been seriously volatile, or at least he likes to think so. His goals have always been straightforward. Space and after that receded into the distance, leaving the little moon behind and move to one of the colonies, far, far away from grey dust and poverty. But only until Kanda crashed into his life like one of the tornados they fortunately only get every few years. Suddenly he was there and made a mess of Lavi’s simple life. The bar and saving money to leave, not more.  
  
With thirty-one Lavi still stands in the same small bar on the same small moon and feels like he started to become as grey as the ever present dust in the last few months. Kanda stayed perfectly calm during their conversation, no anger, no sadness. Just the hard line of his mouth. He also didn’t seem to be surprised and today Lavi wonders if this happened for the first time. Falling in love and only becoming a distant memory in all the years between the encounters. Lavi wonders a lot and he ponders even more. If Kanda’s lonely all alone in the ever present darkness. If there’s a way to get him to stay. And why Lavi’s heart won’t stop aching, even though he’s _not_ in love, because he _can’t_ be. Not if he only sees him every few years.  
  
And still he’s in the same small bar on the same small moon, because he’s terrified that Kanda won’t find him if he moves.

 

It’s only a few months altogether until Kanda’s next visit. He’s reserved, respecting the boundaries Lavi set and properly confused when Lavi more or less falls into his arms and kisses him dearly.  
  
“Oh?” he says surprised and Lavi can’t keep himself from laughing. Kanda raises his brows and his face softens.

 

“Why can’t you stay?” Lavi asks and he knows he’s unfair. Staying was never part of the deal. He lies in Kanda’s arms, who keeps playing with his hair and tracing his spine with his fingertips. Lavi knows the answer. It’s the same reason Kanda withstands radiation so much more than Lavi ever could, his symmetrical and pristine face, the way he has the perfect size for his ship. The genetic elite, born into the darkness of space. Kanda was born to be an Explorer and quitting was never up to debate.  
  
Kanda looks at him and opens his mouth only to close it immediately and Lavi raises his head to kiss him. “I’m sorry, I know you can’t. It’s just… how long do you have to keep going like this?”  
  
Kanda cradles the back of his head and kisses the scars on his cheek. “Six more years,” he finally answers. “That’s the earliest I can ask for redeployment.”  
  
“Six years?” Lavi asks and tries to keep his voice from sounding as heavy as he feels, only to be crushed even more when he understands the stern expression on Kanda’s face.  
  
Six years. Not in Lavi’s time. Six years in Kanda’s time.  
  
Lavi stares at him, mouth dry and hands cold, before he finds his voice. “Kanda, how much time passed for you since our first kiss?”  
  
“How much time passed for you?” Kanda asks without answering and sits up. “A few years?”  
  
Lavi sits up, too. “About ten years,” he replies and Kanda falters, honest surprise on his face.  
  
“Which… which year is it?” he asks after a moment and now Lavi understands the whole extent of time dilations and cryostasis. He answers and Kanda sinks into deep thought, or he would if Lavi wouldn’t press his fingers.  
  
“How much time passed for you?” he asks again and Kanda’s eyes jump towards him. It’s silent for a long moment.  
  
“One and a half year.”

 

Kanda stays for the rest of the night, but the light-heartedness is lost. It’s still passionate and tender and Lavi’s heart jumps against his ribcage, but unsaid words float in between them, like _can’t_ and _shouldn’t_. Both of them stay silent, until it’s time to say goodbye. A few weeks, maybe months for Kanda, years for Lavi. They stand in the bedroom door and kiss, long and slow, and then Kanda takes a piece of paper and writes down a number, long enough to belong to an interstellar cloud far away.  
  
“You call this number and then you say my ID,” Kanda explains and kisses his shoulder.  
  
“And then?” Lavi asks and closes his eye with a sigh. He tangles his fingers into Kanda’s long hair.  
  
“Then you’ll get information about my current mission and you can also dictate a short letter,” Kanda speaks on and cups Lavi’s cheeks, before leaning his forehead against Lavi’s.  
  
“And… you’ll answer?” he asks silently, nearly wincing how fragile his voice sounds. He might grew up, now he’s older than Kanda, at least in years of age, but whenever they’re together he’s still the twenty-one year old boy with a crush and Kanda’s still the stern young man breezing into Lavi’s life and jumbling up everything.  
  
“Yes,” Kanda answers and kisses him.

 

Months fly by, a whole year, but it doesn’t feel remotely as long as the times before, because now Lavi gets a letter every few weeks and needs all his might to not barrage Kanda with letters, because of the time dilation. It’s a short mission, only a few weeks, but in the close range of a wormhole and so Kanda writes him every day, while weeks pass for Lavi.  
  
And waiting is suddenly an option, because Kanda is now a sound part of his life, not anymore flying by like one of those colourful autumn leaves Lavi saw in his schoolbooks many years ago. Kanda isn’t home, but he’s still there and his letters might be short, but heartfelt and so Lavi waits. For Kanda, or how he learns the first time he calls the number Kanda gave him, for _Yuu_. Of course he bitches at Lavi in the first letter he received, but Lavi doesn’t care and feels a little lighter. It’s not anymore Kanda, who shows up every few years and plunges back into the dark void. It’s Yuu, who writes him letters, asks after Lavi’s day and finally gets assigned to Lavi’s planetary system. He’s still far away, but not anymore light years, just light minutes. A tiny rocky moon hidden under thick ice, circling another gas giant, much bigger than the pale blue one rising up to Lavi’s sky. There might be water and Kanda’s in charge of monitoring the transportation of goods to the base close to the southern pole of the moon. It’s a demanding position and Kanda works overtime nearly daily, but it has also its benefits. No time dilation and no cryostasis. And leave every other week.  
  
The job is limited and both of them know that they only have a year max like this, but they don’t care. Kanda comes home every other week, announced by the roaring of a ship and billowing grey dust, and Lavi always greets him at the door with a kiss.  
  
The biggest change isn’t that they see each other so much more often, it’s the fact that they talk and talk and talk. Instead of getting some well-deserved rest Kanda helps out in the bar and while Lavi’s poor patrons drink themselves slowly to death, he leans against the counter and listens to Kanda, who doesn’t have a lot to say in his own opinion, but Lavi still doesn’t grow tired of listening to him. About wormholes, distant stars, interstellar travel. All Lavi has to tell are the same boring stories of the same boring moon, but Kanda keeps asking and his honest interest in Lavi’s life lets warmth pooling somewhere in his chest.  
  
“Yuu?” Lavi asks into the darkness hours later. Kanda lies in his arms and seems to be already half asleep, because he stirs only slowly.  
  
“Hm?” he hums and Lavi kisses his spine.  
  
“Sorry, I didn’t want to wake you up,” he says into his soft hair, until Kanda turns around and nearly bumps their noses together.  
  
“What is it?” he asks and his warm breath wafts over Lavi’s face. He smells like toothpaste and soap.  
  
“Yuu, since when are you doing this?” Lavi asks and when Kanda doesn’t reply immediately he adds, “Working as an Explorer?”  
  
Kanda moves and his warm hand smooths over Lavi’s spine all the way down to the small of his back. “I had my first mission with sixteen,” he answers after a moment. “As a Junior Explorer with my mentor. My first real mission was two years later,” he explains.  
  
“And beforehand?” Lavi reaches into his hair, heart already a little heavy, because Kanda’s going to leave in the early morning for another two weeks.  
  
“Training,” he replies and pulls Lavi close. “We learned to operate different kinds of ships, repair and maintain them, navigate, initiate cryostasis, travel through wormholes and all this.”  
  
“Are you still in contact with your mentor and the other people of your year?” Lavi asks and cups his cheek. It’s silent for a long moment.  
  
“No, most of them are dead,” Kanda says, voice very even.  
  
“What happened?” Lavi frowns and rubs his back, trying to comfort him, but it’s not necessary. Kanda’s voice stays calm and steady.  
  
“Time.”  
  
And once more it’s perfectly silent, aside the sounds of wind and dust moving over the flat roof. Lavi barely hears it anymore after all these years.  
  
“Yuu,” Lavi says into the silence and presses his shoulder. “Yuu, how long is that ago?”  
  
“Long,” Kanda answers evasively and kisses the hard line of his mouth. “Very long ago.”  
  
Lavi always thought he understood Kanda’s dilemma, the net of timelessness he’s tangled in, but only now it dawns onto him how unrooted he is. No family, no steadiness, no home and not even a period of time he belongs to.  
  
“You have to be so lonely,” Lavi says into the darkness, surprised how brittle his own voice sounds. Kanda smooths his hand over his cheek and hooks another hand behind his neck.  
  
“No, I’m not.” _At least not now_ , Lavi thinks and then Kanda kisses him.

 

It takes a few more months of nearly daily calls and visits every other week, until Lavi learns about Alma, who has been something like a home amidst empty void and distance stars. Kanda only talks about him a single time in a windy night, the sky full of clouds, hiding away starlight. Darkness crawls through the cracks in the thin wooden walls and also out of Kanda’s voice and his eyes.  
  
“He… he was my friend,” he breathes and Lavi doesn’t dare to move. It’s colder than usual and the heating isn’t working. The only thing keeping him warm is the blanket and Kanda’s body warmth. Lavi caresses his side, always the same way, from his rips over his waist and to his hips, up and down. “Remember the one time you asked me after collapsing wormholes?”  
  
“Yuu, I’m sorry,” Lavi whispers into the cold air in between them, but Kanda shushes him.  
  
“You couldn’t know. Don’t apologize.” He turns over onto his back and rubs his face. “It was his first mission as a Junior Explorer, together with his mentor.”  
  
The light of a ship flying by touches the window, haphazardly illuminating the profile of Kanda’s face, long lashes casting shadows on his cheekbone, before darkness enshrouds both of them.  
  
“Yuu.” Lavi moves closer and touches his hand. “I’m so sorry he died.”  
  
“Did he?” Kanda asks, confusing him for a moment, and hooks a hand behind one of his knees to pull him close.  
  
“He didn’t?” Their lips touch fleetingly and Lavi embraces him to chase away cold and dark memories.  
  
“Maybe, maybe not.” Kanda hides his face in the crook of Lavi’s neck, lashes fluttering over his skin. “Nobody knows.”  
  
“And that makes it even more unbearable,” Lavi guesses, but the only answer is a surprisingly cold hand crawling under his shirt and silence.

 

In the end Kanda manages to stay nearly for one and a half year on his position, before he gets redeployed, back into the dark abyss of wormholes, never knowing if one of them is going to collapse or not. Suddenly they’re back at letters every few months and Lavi is once more alone. On some days he calls the number Kanda gave him several times, just to hear always the same text.  
  
_Kanda Yuu, #8347603448, currently in the close proximity of W00237543, vital signs normal._  
  
It takes months until Kanda finally travelled successfully through the wormhole, only hours for him, and Lavi pines for every single word, for every single inhale on the other side of the line. Kanda’s letters are very short, because only a few days in unexciting blackness pass for him, and Lavi feels lonelier than ever before, because now he knows what he’s missing. Kanda’s warmth on the other side of the bed, the way he kisses him at the doorway, the little smirk sitting way too rarely on his lips.  
  
The first time they can talk to each other is nearly a year after Kanda left and he notices immediately that something isn’t right. It’s the guilt in Lavi’s voice, every word heavy with regret.  
  
“Lavi,” he says slowly and there’s no anger in his voice, which makes it even harder. Lavi can deal with rage, but not with understanding. “Lavi, it’s no cheating. I leave you alone for years. You didn’t cheat on me. It’s fine,” he says, but nothing is fine.  
  
“But it feels like I did,” Lavi answers a little too loud and for the first time he’s angry, thoroughly. “Yuu… Yuu, I can’t.” Anger vanishes as fast as it appears in the first place and all that it’s left is the howling wind and heartache.  
  
It’s dead silent for a long moment on the other side of the line. “Lavi.” Kanda tries to not sound hurt, but he does and that makes it even harder.  
  
“Yuu, I can’t,” Lavi whispers and tries to choke back the tears without much success. “Yuu, I can’t wait my whole life. I can’t.”  
  
He hears him breathing, controlled and slowly, and finally Kanda speaks on. “I see.” It’s silent for another moment. “Lavi?”  
  
“Yeah?” Lavi wipes his face with the back of his hand.  
  
“Lavi, can I come back as a friend?” Kanda asks and the usual firmness of his voice is lost. It goes right through Lavi’s heart.  
  
“Of course you can,” he whispers and Kanda answers equally silent.  
  
“Thank you.”

 

 

Heartache stays a loyal companion for a long time. The knowledge that the pain is still fresh for Kanda, somewhere out in space, makes it even harder. Lavi’s heart feels a little lighter with every month he’s living and not waiting, but the sound of Kanda’s hurt voice never leaves. He still sometimes calls the number just to hear that he’s okay.  
  
Kanda sends him a last letter, only a few words, but there’s more in the envelope. It’s an electronic cheque. Lavi needs four tries to tap the long number into his wristband and nearly loses the ground under his feet when he sees the amount. There’s a message attached to it.  
  
_Please take the money. You deserve more than this damn bar on this damn moon._  
  
Lavi stares at the words and the love seeping out of them and accepts the payment before he can change his mind.

 

 

It’s still the same small moon, but the bar is long gone. Lavi moves into one of the cities nearby. He didn’t graduate and has no qualification aside working in a sad bar for his whole life, but he still finds a job. His apartment is tiny and the bookstore he’s working at is even smaller, but there’s no smell of cheap liquor and no sad faces drinking themselves slowly to death. It’s all books and so much less dust. And especially it’s not anymore the bar he saw Kanda for the first time, the bed they slept with each other, the doorway they kissed. It’s a tiny apartment with no bad memories.  
  
Lavi lives.

 

 

Years fly by and he has a relationship and then another, both of them tender but not very long. Kanda is still present, mostly in his heart and in the number Lavi still calls from time to time. Heartache slowly leaves and all that is left are soft memories of a beautiful face frozen in time.  
  
Until Lavi one day calls the number and hears for the first time a different message.  
  
_Kanda Yuu, #8347603448, currently in the proximity of black hole B09984, vital signs critical._  
  
Lavi doesn’t go to work and spends the whole day calling different numbers in a desperate attempt to get information, but the answer is always the same. Due to time dilation nobody has any information about the current status of the mission.

 

It’s torture, drawn-out for months. The message changes from time to time and now Lavi knows that there was a collision. Kanda’s vital signs stay critical and for the first time Lavi considers that he might not make it. That Yuu will die.  
  
He goes to work, because he as to, and lives his life, because he has to. He goes to bed and gets up in the morning. He sleeps and eats. He sometimes laughs when his co-worker is joking. And he waits, as frozen as Kanda, because time won’t pass for him.  
  
Heartache comes back and brings a new companion along, regret. Lavi regrets everything. That he broke up with Kanda, that he ever fell in love with him. He regrets the day he let him leave and the day he stepped for the first time into the small bar and into Lavi’s life. Lavi regrets all of it and the most that there’s nothing he can do. Kanda is somewhere in the depths of space and slowly dies, while oxygen gets sucked out into the starless black sea.

 

 _Kanda Yuu, #8347603448, currently in the proximity of black hole B09984, mission M2889325 failed._  
  
It’s an autumn morning and Lavi called the number like he does every morning. He doesn’t remember going down, but he did, sitting all alone on the worn-out wooden floor of his tiny apartment.  
  
“He’s dead,” he whispers and the only answer is silence.

 

He gets a call hours later. He still went to work, because the silence of his apartment was unbearable, and spent the last hours stacking books in the back. His co-workers leave him alone, all of them knowing about Kanda dying for months somewhere near a black hole, and Lavi nearly misses the vibration of his phone. Then he answers and the little moon stops spinning for a moment.  
  
“Kanda Yuu, #8347603448, currently in the proximity of black hole B09984, mission M2889325,” an emotionless computer voice says. “Recovered. Vital signals still critical.”  
  
That’s the end of the message and Lavi bursts into tears, relief sloshing over him, because there’s a chance, small and nearly invisible, but a chance that Kanda might survive, that he won’t die all alone in the cold void.

 

It takes the ship months to leave the gravitational field of the black hole and the period between the messages gets shorter and shorter. Most of the members of the ship survived, but all of them injured. Kanda was hurt by a shrapnel of the ship’s mantle and was exposed to radiation, only a short time, but enough to leave behind damage.  
  
Lavi’s boss is fortunately a patient woman, because his mind is elsewhere. He spends his days calling different embassies and departments in the desperate attempt to get a visa for the planetary system Kanda was brought to, but without any success. He’s an unimportant man from an unimportant planetary system and therefore there’s no chance for him to leave.  
  
And so he’s back at waiting, something he should be seasoned in, but it’s still agony.

 

The phone rings a few days later, an unknown number, and Lavi nearly stumbles over the blanket when he jumps out of bed. It’s late at night and he was asleep until now, exhausted by bureaucratic astray.  
  
“Hello?” he asks breathlessly, afraid it might be the hospital. It’s not.  
  
“Lavi?” Kanda sounds effete, but alive. Alive.  
  
Lavi can’t stop crying.

 

The treatment manages to reduce a part of the damage, but the exposure to radiation is enough to steal away a big part of Kanda’s health. When Lavi finally sees him for the first time in nearly four years, he only looks a little over thirty, but a lot thinner than before.  
  
Lavi runs over grey dust and then he’s finally back in his arms, all skinny and weak, but alive.  
  
“Yuu,” he breathes. “Oh, Yuu.” His eye jumps over dark circles, scars and hollow cheeks.  
  
Kanda looks weary to the bone, all energy lost near a black hole, but he’s smiling. His cold hands smooth over Lavi’s cheeks and curl into his hair. “Hello,” he says and Lavi laughs and cries at the same time. The kiss tastes like tears and relief and when Lavi draws back a little to look at Kanda he feels the gravitational pull in the depths of his heart.  
  
“When do you have to leave?” he asks and Kanda’s face lights up. And for the first time in years Lavi dares to hope.  
  
“Never. Explorers have to be perfect healthy and I’m not.” Kanda reaches into his hair and examines the first grey strands. “I always forget how much time passed, because you still have this boyish charm.” The compliment wafts by without reaching Lavi, whose happiness is forgotten.  
  
“How bad is it?” he asks, hands cold and mouths dry.  
  
“We don’t have as much time as we would have in another life, but it’s fine. I lived for so long,” he answers calmly.  
  
“How long?” Lavi asks and examines his pale face.  
  
“Long enough. Much longer than without the accident,” Kanda replies and smooths his thumbs over Lavi’s cheekbones.  
  
Lavi smiles at him and his eye wells over. Kanda touches his wet lashes and his dark eyes are reassuring. “And you want to stay on my miserable little moon? Here’s nothing.”  
  
“You’re here and that’s enough,” Kanda says earnestly. “I never had a home, until I met you.”  
  
“And I had never anything to look forward to, until I met you,” Lavi replies and beams at him.  
  
_Until I met you._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading.  
> This was partly inspired by Interstellar, my favourite movie. I love space and the idea of time dilation is very fascinating. 
> 
> See you tomorrow for day 6!


End file.
